Coronavirus

[ThistleWhistle]

52 minutes ago, phart said:

It's this huge balancing act that has to be done between all these other factors.

It's defo a balancing act with vested interests and bias all over the place that need managed.  The news seem to present the bloke who runs Ryan Air and two other folk from the travel industry as 'informed debate'.  

One thing that'll supersede it though is the big dog's bias - there is no way on earth unless it's a swarm of mammary glands pointing skyward time that Bojo is calling off 'Bojo Day' on the 19th if England win the euros the day before.  

[phart]

1 hour ago, ThistleWhistle said:

It's defo a balancing act with vested interests and bias all over the place that need managed.  The news seem to present the bloke who runs Ryan Air and two other folk from the travel industry as 'informed debate'.  

One thing that'll supersede it though is the big dog's bias - there is no way on earth unless it's a swarm of mammary glands pointing skyward time that Bojo is calling off 'Bojo Day' on the 19th if England win the euros the day before.  

Well everyone will protect their own self interests that's just how we are.

I've said before if i were in different circumstances i'd probably be arguing different things.

Although it doesn't really affect me that much i've been able to tailor my behaviour in a way that it doesn't really matter what everyone else does i can still insulate myself against infection.

I haven't been able to the gym since 1st week of March 2020, nor have i been in anyone house in the same time period. Didn't see my friends for 6 months etc. The most onerous one for me is missing a wedding i'd have loved to go to, but these are all first world problems in comparison to what has happened elsewhere. I sort of laugh at how ludicrously self absorbed it is to moan about them when you think of funeral pyres or people effectively drowning to death alone over a period of 3 weeks.

I'd wished we had had a bit more patience with the emergence of delta. We were another couple of months away from having a significant majority of the population fully vaccinated, the definition of that 3 weeks after 2nd dose.

We've had a ramp up in cases now, and the hospitalisations are now following that trend in a lagged manner, fingers crossed deaths don't follow and I don't think they will thanks to the most vulnerable being vaccinated. So maybe this exit wave won't get too high anyway.

[Alibi]

11 hours ago, Hercules Rockefeller said:

The latest research actually shows your immune system will cope with new strains of the virus so no need to panic at all. The far bigger worry is the effects of lockdown in terms of the education gap, mental health consequences, undiagnosed cancers, businesses winding up, and so on.

Living in Edinburgh the papers are full of hysteria about the delta variant. Number of covid deaths? Three since 26th April.

Time to get the economy moving. If anything you should be thanking everyone that went down to London.

Your immune system may cope with current variants; however the more cases there are, the more the likelihood of a new variant developing and that could undo the benefits of having people vaccinated.  that may not happen, or the vaccines may be able to deal with new variants, but there is an element of doubt there.  Common sense says that mass gatherings with nobody masked and people hugging are risky; even if some opening up is reasonable, it doesn't mean all restrictions being removed is a good idea. Anyway, come back and let us know how you get on after you've had Covid.

[phart]

On 6/22/2021 at 9:56 PM, Scotty CTA said:

Got my second vaccine today at lunchtime.

First... AZ

Second... Pfizer

I'll update the side effects (if any).

looks good, a trial result just out

 

[ThistleWhistle]

1 hour ago, phart said:

Well everyone will protect their own self interests that's just how we are.

I've said before if i were in different circumstances i'd probably be arguing different things.

Although it doesn't really affect me that much i've been able to tailor my behaviour in a way that it doesn't really matter what everyone else does i can still insulate myself against infection.

I haven't been able to the gym since 1st week of March 2020, nor have i been in anyone house in the same time period. Didn't see my friends for 6 months etc. The most onerous one for me is missing a wedding i'd have loved to go to, but these are all first world problems in comparison to what has happened elsewhere. I sort of laugh at how ludicrously self absorbed it is to moan about them when you think of funeral pyres or people effectively drowning to death alone over a period of 3 weeks.

I'd wished we had had a bit more patience with the emergence of delta. We were another couple of months away from having a significant majority of the population fully vaccinated, the definition of that 3 weeks after 2nd dose.

We've had a ramp up in cases now, and the hospitalisations are now following that trend in a lagged manner, fingers crossed deaths don't follow and I don't think they will thanks to the most vulnerable being vaccinated. So maybe this exit wave won't get too high anyway.

Absolutely and probably more to do with me getting wrapped up in semantics but it was barely 'informed' and definitely wasn't a 'debate' given there wasn't anyone even playing devil's advocate.  

Hopefully the exit wave is fairly small in comparison but it is already flagging up the massive elephant in the room around NHS funding/management.  It's basically running on emergency measures which is fair enough as there shouldn't be enough fat in the system to do the day to day plus a pandemic but there has to be a level where it can deal with both yet seems a threshold already in touching distance.

Edited July 2, 2021 by ThistleWhistle

[Hercules Rockefeller]

1 hour ago, Alibi said:

Your immune system may cope with current variants; however the more cases there are, the more the likelihood of a new variant developing and that could undo the benefits of having people vaccinated.  that may not happen, or the vaccines may be able to deal with new variants, but there is an element of doubt there.  Common sense says that mass gatherings with nobody masked and people hugging are risky; even if some opening up is reasonable, it doesn't mean all restrictions being removed is a good idea. Anyway, come back and let us know how you get on after you've had Covid.

The cost of lockdown/restrictions is approximately £1bn to the UK economy every day (i.e. ~£100mn for the Scottish economy daily). I wouldn't say it's worth the knock-on consequences.

Also I have had covid and had a dry throat for a week. That was it. Every year the flu virus adapts and vaccines are tweaked. Worse case scenario is the vulnerable require a booster on an annual basis.

[Lamia]

6 minutes ago, Hercules Rockefeller said:

The cost of lockdown/restrictions is approximately £1bn to the UK economy every day (i.e. ~£100mn for the Scottish economy daily). I wouldn't say it's worth the knock-on consequences.

Also I have had covid and had a dry throat for a week. That was it. Every year the flu virus adapts and vaccines are tweaked. Worse case scenario is the vulnerable require a booster on an annual basis.

How long do you think it takes to tweak a vaccine?

[Hercules Rockefeller]

8 minutes ago, Lamia said:

How long do you think it takes to tweak a vaccine?

Six months.

What's your point?

[Scotty CTA]

2 hours ago, phart said:

looks good, a trial result just out

👍

[tartandon]

16 hours ago, kumnio said:

My dad had a minor heart attack on Monday and has been in hospital since then, he was due to have a stent put in yesterday, but the ward was put in lockdown after a patient was diagnosed with COVID. Thankfully he is fine, but just a bit bored.

Ninewells in Dundee have opened a third COVID ward in the last few days, and are still getting new patients. It’s looking a bit grim. 

sorry to hear that. fingers crossed he gets the operation soon.

The knock-on impact of the rising case numbers is huge. As more people enter hospital, more wards are required to facilitate the patients, meaning that 'regular' patients cant be accommodated. There will also then be increased numbers of staff having to isolate due to coming into contact with the covid patients 

For those that don't require hospitalisation, they will have close contacts who also need to isolate.  Given the rising numbers, this number is now over 100K as referenced above by @phart. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a decent percentage of those people who are failing to isolate. This then cases a massive problem if they then develop covid and infect other people who would have been 'safe' if the contacts had isolated in the first place.`

I had both my jags months ago. But I'm still not behaving differently to the start of the pandemic. I wish more of the younger demographic were treating this seriously.

[phart]

2 hours ago, ThistleWhistle said:

Absolutely and probably more to do with me getting wrapped up in semantics but it was barely 'informed' and definitely wasn't a 'debate' given there wasn't anyone even playing devil's advocate.  

Hopefully the exit wave is fairly small in comparison but it is already flagging up the massive elephant in the room around NHS funding/management.  It's basically running on emergency measures which is fair enough as there shouldn't be enough fat in the system to do the day to day plus a pandemic but there has to be a level where it can deal with both yet seems a threshold already in touching distance.

Yeah the fact that no-redundancy is built into the system is shown to be a problem in situations like this. Efficiency is defined as getting something done with the least amount of effort but only works in perfect conditions.

The Mindscape podcast (Sean Carroll a theoretical physicist at Cal-tech is the jost) had a guest on called Simon DeDeo a few weeks back and he studies Social and Decision Sciences snd he was saying this. Pretty interesting I thought so i plagerised it and said it to you

Jon Stewart years ago characterised how these news shows do"debate" with his Coke and Pepsi satire thing, might even have been on CNN Larry King show.

[Lamia]

5 hours ago, Hercules Rockefeller said:

Six months.

What's your point?

Would love to see where you get that timescale from but even if that is the case you have just proved my point.

[biffer]

22 hours ago, Hercules Rockefeller said:

The latest research actually shows your immune system will cope with new strains of the virus so no need to panic at all. The far bigger worry is the effects of lockdown in terms of the education gap, mental health consequences, undiagnosed cancers, businesses winding up, and so on.

Living in Edinburgh the papers are full of hysteria about the delta variant. Number of covid deaths? Three since 26th April.

Time to get the economy moving. If anything you should be thanking everyone that went down to London.

Can you point me to that research? Not seen that.

[Alibi]

10 hours ago, Hercules Rockefeller said:

Also I have had covid and had a dry throat for a week. That was it. Every year the flu virus adapts and vaccines are tweaked. Worse case scenario is the vulnerable require a booster on an annual basis.

Lucky you.  I nearly died. Your move.

[Hercules Rockefeller]

On 7/2/2021 at 11:01 PM, Alibi said:

Lucky you.  I nearly died. Your move.

Okay, let's keep everyone locked up in that case.

[Hercules Rockefeller]

On 7/2/2021 at 6:12 PM, Lamia said:

Would love to see where you get that timescale from but even if that is the case you have just proved my point.

"Selecting Viruses for the Seasonal Influenza Vaccine | CDC" https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/vaccine-selection.htm

On 7/2/2021 at 10:06 PM, biffer said:

Can you point me to that research? Not seen that.

"T cells recognize recent SARS-CoV-2 variants | National Institutes of Health (NIH)" https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/t-cells-recognize-recent-sars-cov-2-variants

"In their study of recovered COVID-19 patients, the researchers determined that SARS-CoV-2-specific CD8+ T-cell responses remained largely intact and could recognize virtually all mutations in the variants studied. While larger studies are needed, the researchers note that their findings suggest that the T cell response in convalescent individuals, and most likely in vaccinees, are largely not affected by the mutations found in these three variants, and should offer protection against emerging variants."

[phart]

None of those variants tested was the delta variant just a FYI.

B.1.617.2 has shown increased reduced neutralisation in tests than the ones tested above. https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(21)00755-8.pdf?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867421007558%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

 

However fruitless discussing it as laypeople when none of us really understand the subject.

[euan2020]

On 6/18/2021 at 7:29 AM, phart said:

Good news is it seems that against hospitalisation Vaccines seem more effective against Delta than they do Alpha!

Pfizer is proving to be a better vaccine though. Which shows what remarkable technology it is cause the AZ is amazing just not relative to the mRNA.

any data/opinion on the Novavax ? 

I was reading that due to being older technololgy it is more effective and has less side effects 

Likley will get Pfizer this week - think can do walk in's in Texas for either Moderna or Pfizer - plenty of availablity  

 

[phart]

1 hour ago, euan2020 said:

any data/opinion on the Novavax ? 

I was reading that due to being older technololgy it is more effective and has less side effects 

Likley will get Pfizer this week - think can do walk in's in Texas for either Moderna or Pfizer - plenty of availablity  

 

I have no informed opinion. I don't know enough however read a wee bit about it.

Novavax's two-dose COVID-19 vaccine showed 90% overall vaccine efficacy (VE), 100% protection against moderate and severe illness, and 93% VE against variants of concern and of interest in a phase 3 US clinical trial in adults

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/06/novavax-covid-vaccine-90-effective-phase-3-trial

The researchers said that although their study was not powered to evaluate vaccine efficacy against all SARS-CoV-2 strains, the results are reassuring. "In particular, the efficacy estimate of 96.4% against the non-B.1.1.7 strains (the majority of which were the prototype strain) is similar to the efficacy of 95.0% reported against this strain for the [Pfizer vaccine] and the efficacy of 94.1% for the [Moderna vaccine

 

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2107659

[biffer]

1 hour ago, euan2020 said:

any data/opinion on the Novavax ? 

I was reading that due to being older technololgy it is more effective and has less side effects 

Likley will get Pfizer this week - think can do walk in's in Texas for either Moderna or Pfizer - plenty of availablity  

 

Some chatter that they’re having a bit of trouble in scaling up production. Which might be why they’ve not applied for a license yet. They’ll get there eventually though. 

[biffer]

Don’t forget about Valneva as well, which is a traditional deactivated virus vaccine.

[Freeedom]

My partner works in a vaccine centre and she said turn out has been incredibly low this week, 50-60% turn out. She suspects it's because there are so many people who are either infected with the virus or are self isolating due to being a close contact with someone. 

We really are doing an experiment with the population right now by reaching herd immunity through both spread of the disease and vaccination. The government have allowed this to happen and it's shameful.

[biffer]

20 hours ago, Hercules Rockefeller said:

"Selecting Viruses for the Seasonal Influenza Vaccine | CDC" https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/vaccine-selection.htm

"T cells recognize recent SARS-CoV-2 variants | National Institutes of Health (NIH)" https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/t-cells-recognize-recent-sars-cov-2-variants

"In their study of recovered COVID-19 patients, the researchers determined that SARS-CoV-2-specific CD8+ T-cell responses remained largely intact and could recognize virtually all mutations in the variants studied. While larger studies are needed, the researchers note that their findings suggest that the T cell response in convalescent individuals, and most likely in vaccinees, are largely not affected by the mutations found in these three variants, and should offer protection against emerging variants."

That’s not quite as definitive a statement as the one you made.

[wheres the pies]

Here we go again the tories not giving a fuck let’s open everything back up I’m sure in late July early August they’ll be over a hundred thousand cases a day of Covid straight out the jair Bolsonaro book the tories are playing 

[Freeedom]

3 hours ago, wheres the pies said:

Here we go again the tories not giving a fuck let’s open everything back up I’m sure in late July early August they’ll be over a hundred thousand cases a day of Covid straight out the jair Bolsonaro book the tories are playing 

It's not just the tories, our rates are higher than Englands and it's because the Scottish government have done nothing to abate the spread.